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Summary: Drought is one of the major environmental constraints for wheat production world‐wide. As the progenitor and genetic reservoir of common wheat, emmer wheat is considered as an invaluable gene pool for breeding drought‐tolerant wheat.Combining GWAS and eGWAS analysis of 107 accessions, we identified 86 QTLs, 105 462 eQTLs as well as 68 eQTL hotspots associating with drought tolerance (DT) in emmer wheat.A complex regulatory network composed of 185 upstream regulator and 2432 downstream drought‐responsive candidates was developed, of which TtOTS1 was found to play a negative effect in determining DT through affecting root development.This study sheds light on revealing the genetic basis underlying DT, which will provide the indispensable genes and germplasm resources for elite drought tolerance wheat improvement and breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interfacial solar‐driven evaporation has attracted much attention due to its high photothermal conversion efficiency. The core technology of photothermal conversion is photothermal materials, biomass photothermal materials are characterized by low cost, large specific surface area, environmental friendliness, and renewability. Discarded tea leaf residue (TLR) is harmful to the environment and has good recycling potential. In this work, a high‐performance, low‐cost, environmentally friendly solar steam generation material is fabricated by combining polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels and biomass photothermal material TLR. TheTLR hydrogel utilizes solar energy as a renewable energy source for desalination. Under 1.0 kW m−2 simulated solar irradiation, the evaporation rate is 1.35 kg m−2 h−1 and the evaporation efficiency is 93.35%. The waste heat generated during solar water evaporation can be effectively used for synergistic water‐electricity cogeneration, thus achieving an evaporation rate and voltage of 0.91 kg m−2 h−1 and 58.8 mV under 1.0 kW m−2 solar irradiation, respectively. The prepared hydrogel can also be used as a good organic dye adsorbent material, which has a broad application prospect in wastewater treatment. This method for preparing solar absorbers reduces manufacturing costs environmentally friendly and guides the potential practical application using discarded waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

4‐Hydroxy‐2,5‐dimethyl‐3(2H)‐furanone (HDMF) is a flavor compound widely found in natural products and is used in food as a flavor‐enhancing agent. Quinone oxidoreductase (QOR) was verified as a key enzyme to synthesize HDMF in strawberry, while its impact on HDMF production by Zygosaccharomyces rouxii was still unknown. The QOR gene was cloned and overexpressed in Z. rouxii, and its impact on HDMF production by Z. rouxii was then further analyzed. At the same time, it is expected to obtain engineered strains of Z. rouxii with high HDMF production. The results showed that the engineered strains of Z. rouxii exhibit different levels of QOR gene expression and HDMF production; among them, the QOR6 strain exhibiting the highest gene expression level and HDMF production was named as ZrQOR. The HDMF production of the ZrQOR strain was significantly higher than that of wild‐type Z. rouxii at 3 and 5 days of culture, with 1.41‐fold and 1.08‐fold increases, respectively. At 3 days of fermentation, the highest HDMF yield of ZrQOR strain was obtained (2.75 mg/L), 2 days ahead of the reported highest HDMF production by Z. rouxii. At 3, 5, and 7 days, QOR gene expression was 4.8‐fold, 3.3‐fold, and 5.6‐fold higher in the ZrQOR strain than in the wild‐type Z. rouxii, respectively. Therefore, overexpression of the QOR gene facilitates HDMF synthesis. The genetic stability of the 0–20 generation ZrQOR strain was stable, and there was no significant difference in colony shape, QOR expression, or HDMF production compared to the wild type. In this study, the genetic engineering Z. rouxii strain was used to improve HDMF production. This research has laid the groundwork for further industrial production of HDMF via microbial synthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling and theoretical prediction of thermal expansion property of particulate reinforced polymer composite are important hot issues in composite science and engineering. In this article, the thermomechanical interaction between spherical particle and polymer matrix and its contribution to the thermal expansion behavior of spherical particle reinforced polymer composite have been studied theoretically. A mechanical interphase resulted from the thermomechanical interaction is observed in radial distribution of effective coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) around the particle with an isotropic assumption of the particle and polymer matrix, and with necessary simplification of the thermomechanical interference among particles, an analytical equation for predicting the CTE of the composite has been proposed. Compared with other models, good fits by this model with finite element (FE) simulated CTE value of particle reinforced composite and previously reported CTE data of particulate reinforced epoxy composites with particle size from micron to nanometer scale are observed. This study would deepen the understanding of the interphase in particle reinforced composites and be favorable for mechanism analysis of other physical properties of polymer composites. Highlights: Thermomechanical interaction between spherical particle and matrix is studiedA new model for the CTE of particle reinforced polymer composite is proposedFE simulation been carried out to examine the reasonability of the proposed modelPresent model well fits the reported reinforced epoxy composites CTE dataA new perspective for analyzing other properties of reinforced composites [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The packing of hard segment in polyurethane hard domain has not been resolved or seen clearly yet. In this work, we prepared polyurethane blends, which were composed of different weight ratios of crystallizable 1195A and non‐crystallizable EG85A, to study the structural evolution and crystallization in mixed hard domain. Time and temperature dependent differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and x‐ray diffraction results were used to record the micro‐phase evolution and crystallization processes. It was very surprising to find that the multiple melting temperatures in these blends were similar. We deduced that the packing of hard segment tended to separate into different groups, probably dependent on their segmental length. The crystalline nucleus was consist of 1195A hard segments with similar length, and the out‐layer structure was consisted of mixed hard segments of varying lengths. The FTIR results demonstrated that crystallinity did not affect the degree of hydrogen bonding association (HBA), and the stacking of hard segments may be only differed in the degree of ordering. Moreover, the degree of HBA of the blends was always higher than the calculated number based on weight ratio of pure samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hyperlipidemia is characterized by abnormally elevated blood lipids. Quinoa saponins (QS) have multiple pharmacological activities, including antitumor, bactericidal and immune‐enhancing effects. However, the lipid‐lowering effect and mechanisms of QS in vivo have been scarcely reported. Methods: The effect of QS against hyperlipidemia induced by high‐fat diet in rats was explored based on gut microbiota and serum non‐targeted metabolomics. Results: The study demonstrated that the supplementation of QS could reduce serum lipids, body weight, liver injury and inflammation. 16S rRNA sequencing demonstrated that QS mildly increased alpha‐diversity, altered the overall structure of intestinal flora, decreased the relative richness of Firmicutes, the ratio of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes (P < 0.05) and increased the relative richness of Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Bifidobacterium, Roseburia and Coprococcus (P < 0.05). Simultaneously, metabolomics analysis showed that QS altered serum functional metabolites with respect to bile acid biosynthesis, arachidonic acid metabolism and taurine and hypotaurine metabolism, which were closely related to bile acid metabolism and fatty acid β‐oxidation. Furthermore, QS increased protein levels of farnesoid X receptor, peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor α and carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1, which were related to the screened metabolic pathways. Spearman correlation analysis showed that there was a correlation between gut microbiota and differential metabolites. Conclusion: QS could prevent lipid metabolism disorders in hyperlipidemic rats, which may be closely associated with the regulation of the gut microbiota and multiple metabolic pathways. This study may provide new evidence for QS as natural active substances for the prevention of hyperlipidemia. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Non‐operating revenue (NOR), derived from investments, contributions, government appropriations, and medical space rentals, can contribute to financial stability of hospitals by offsetting operating losses and improving profitability. NOR might benefit rural hospitals that often face intense financial pressures. However, little is known about how much rural hospitals rely on NOR and if certain organizational characteristics are associated with differences in NOR. Methods: Healthcare Cost Report Information System data from 2011 to 2019 were used to analyze sources of revenue among Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) and Rural Prospective Payment System (R‐PPS) hospitals through descriptive statistics and regression models. Reliance on NOR was measured by the percentage of total revenue from non‐operating sources. Findings: Results indicate that both CAHs and R‐PPS hospitals rely on NOR; however, CAHs have a higher percentage of total revenue derived from non‐operating sources (3.2%) as compared to R‐PPS hospitals (1.9%) (p < 0.001). Government‐owned hospitals have significantly higher reliance on NOR than other ownership types. System affiliation also influences reliance on NOR. Lastly, results suggest that NOR may play a role in improving overall profit margins. Conclusions: As rural hospitals disproportionately face challenges related to declining profitability and the risk for closure, they may rely on NOR to continue to strengthen financial performance and provide health care to their communities. However, NOR is not guaranteed, and reliance on NOR further reiterates the value of stable, adequate reimbursement to guard against fluctuations in NOR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With satellite laser communication, advantages can be achieved in high communication rate, precise beam pointing, high confidentiality, and light‐small terminal. Satellite–ground (SG) laser links also play a crucial role as trunk links. However, the SG link is influenced by atmospheric turbulence and platform vibration, these two factors will cause unstable link tracking. This paper focuses on the viewpoint of beam energy transmission, using the low‐frequency harmonic phase compensating method to establish the random phase screen. On the basis of this model, the laser beam energy distribution and the spot mass positioning error are analyzed considering turbulence taking vibration which is not considered in previous studies. The simulation results show that the spot mass center (SMC) is impressionable in strong turbulence under platform vibration, but in a weak turbulent environment, SMC is insensitive to vibration when turbulence and vibration are at the same noise level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultra‐low molecular weight (ULMW) CO2‐polyols with well‐defined hydroxyl end groups represent useful soft segments for the preparation of high‐performance polyurethane foams. However, owing to the poor proton tolerance of catalysts towards CO2/epoxide telomerization, it remains challenging to synthesize ULMW yet colorless CO2‐polyols. Herein, we propose an immobilization strategy of constructing supported catalysts by chemical anchoring of aluminum porphyrin on Merrifield resin. The resulting supported catalyst displays both extremely high proton tolerance (≈8000 times the equivalents of metal centers) and independence of cocatalyst, affording CO2‐polyols with ULMW (580 g mol−1) and high polymer selectivity (>99 %). Moreover, the ULMW CO2‐polyols with various architectures (tri‐, quadra‐, and hexa‐arm) can be obtained, suggesting the wide proton universality of supported catalysts. Notably, benefiting from the heterogeneous nature of the supported catalyst, colorless products can be facilely achieved by simple filtration. The present strategy provides a platform for the synthesis of colorless ULMW polyols derived from not only CO2/epoxides, but also lactone, anhydrides etc. or their combinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reverse water gas shift (RWGS) reaction is an attractive approach to convert CO2 with renewable H2 to produce CO. However, this reaction is always accompanied by undesirable methanation reaction lowering the CO selectivity, particularly, at low reaction temperature and on Ni catalysts. Herein, a strategy of deposition of inert Ag on the surface of Ni to block methanation reaction during RWGS for selective conversion of CO2 toward CO was reported. Characterizations showed that in contrast to formation of bulk Ni−Ag alloy, both Ag particle and highly dispersed Ag are direct contacting with Ni particle. Surface Ag modifies the property of Ni geometrically and electronically, resulting in reduced accessible surface Ni sites and Ni ensemble size, as well as electron transfer from Ni to Ag. Consequently, both the amount and strength of CO adsorption are reduced, which facilitates CO desorption and reduces CO methanation activity. The Ag modification tunes Ni/SiO2 from selective methanation to selective RWGS, with 100 % CO selectivity on Ni‐0.3 Ag/SiO2 (Ag/Ni=0.3) at 400 °C with gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) >300 L g−1 h−1 and CO selectivity is >80.7 % even at a low GHSV of 15 L g−1 h−1. Moreover, the Ni‐0.3 Ag/SiO2 appears to be very stable for RWGS reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spinal cord injury (SCI) damages sensory systems, producing chronic neuropathic pain that is resistant to medical treatment. The specific mechanisms underlying SCI‐induced neuropathic pain (SCI‐NP) remain unclear, and protein biomarkers have not yet been integrated into diagnostic screening. To better understand the host molecular pathways involved in SCI‐NP, we used the bioinformatics method, the PubMed database and bioinformatics methods to identify target genes and their associated pathways. We reviewed 2504 articles on the regulation of SCI‐NP and used the text mining of PubMed database abstracts to determine associations among 12 pathways and networks. Based on this method, we identified two central genes in SCI‐NP: interleukin‐6 (IL‐6) and tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α). Adult male Sprague–Dawley rats were used to build the SCI‐NP models. The threshold for paw withdrawal was significantly reduced in the SCI group, and TLR4 was activated in microglia after SCI. Enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay（ELISA) analysis of TNF‐α and IL‐6 levels was significantly higher in the SCI group than in the sham group. Western blot showed that expressions of the TLR4/MyD88/NF‐κB inflammatory pathway protein increased dramatically in the SCI group. Using the TLR4 inhibitor TAK‐242, the pain threshold and expressions of inflammatory factors and proteins of the proteins of the inflammatory signal pathway were reversed, TLR4 in microglia was suppressed, suggesting that SCI‐NP was related to neuroinflammation mediated by the TLR4 signalling pathway. In conclusion, we found that TNF‐α and IL‐6 were the neuroinflammation‐related genes involved in SCI‐NP that can be alleviated by inhibiting the inflammatory pathway upstream of the TLR4/MyD88/NF‐κB inflammatory pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionic skin (I‐Skin) has the advantage of feasible compatibility with biological systems. Nevertheless, developing a stable and durable ionic skin is challenging. Here, an ionic polyurethane (i‐PU) is synthesized, which is capable of self‐healing and able to lock the ionic liquids (ILs). In detail, an ionic chain extender containing an ammonium cationic group is synthesized, followed by the polymerization to obtain the target i‐PU. Through electrostatic interaction and chain diffusion, the i‐PU can be fully self‐healed at room temperature within 400 min. Afterward, low contact angle (37°) of the i‐PU against IL and the density functional theory (DFT) calculation prove their good compatibility and strong interaction, originating from the electrostatic interaction. The Raman intensity map shows the reversible process of the enrichment and restoration of ionic concentration on the i‐PU/IL surface when external pressure is applied or released, proving stable binding of ions by ionic polymer chains. Lastly, the self‐healing I‐Skin based on the i‐PU/IL is fabricated with a wide range of pressures (0–120 kPa), fast response time (32 ms), excellent antifatigue property (2% attenuation after 1000 cycles), and remarkable sensitivity (52.4 kPa–1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The precise named entity recognition (NER) is a key component in Chinese clinical natural language processing. Although clinical NER systems have attracted widespread attention and been studied for decades, the latest NER research usually relies on a shallow text representation with one‐layer neural encoding, which fails to capture deep features and limits its performance improvement. To capture more features and encode the clinical text efficiently, we propose a deep stacked neural network for Chinese clinical NER. The neural network stacks two bidirectional long‐short term memory and gated recurrent unit layers to encode the text twice, followed by a conditional random fields (CRF) layer to recognize named entities in Chinese clinical text. Extensive empirical results on three real‐world datasets demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms six state‐of‐the‐art NER methods. Especially compared with the conventional CRF model, our method has at least 3.75% F1‐score improvement on these public datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Straw return plays an important role in the improvement of farmland ecological environments, increasing soil fertility, crop quality, and yield. However, in the early growth of rice (Oryza sativa L.), straw decomposition and rice growth may be inhibited by suboptimal carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratios. We, therefore, explored methods that could alleviate the inhibition of straw decomposition using different combinations of ammonium bicarbonate and compound fertilizer. No fertilizer (CK) and compound fertilizer (S0) were used as the control. The ratios of added ammonium bicarbonate were 10% (S1), 20% (S2), 30% (S3), and 40% (S4), respectively. Compared with the S0 treatment, the S2 treatment accelerated straw decomposition, promoted the early growth of tillers and roots, and improved the leaf area index, dry matter accumulation, and N use efficiency (apparent N utilization, agronomic N utilization, and partial factor productivity increased by 4.05‒19.48% in two years). Moreover, panicle number, filled‐grain percentage, and 1000‐grain weight were significantly higher in the S2 treatment than other treatments. The grain yield of S2 treatment was significantly higher than that of S0 treatment by 4.06% (2019) and 5.66% (2020). Regression analysis revealed that the optimal ratios of ammonium bicarbonate for increasing straw decomposition and grain yield were relatively close, 16.27% and 14.60%, respectively. These results suggest that compared with conventional fertilization method (S0), the 20% treatment is a more effective fertilization method that prevents inhibition of straw decomposition, promoting rice growth and yield, and improving nitrogen (N) use efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective detection of tomatoes with early decay still remains one of the major problems in the post‐harvest processing. The feasibility of using visible and near infrared (Vis–NIR) hyperspectral reflectance imaging coupled with image‐spectrum merging processing and analysis technology to detect early decay on tomatoes was observed. Mean normalization method was used to correct the uneven illumination caused by the large curvature change and the reflective characteristics of tomato surface. Principal component (PC) clustering analysis of spectra was used to find the optimal PC that was then used to distinguish sound and decayed tissues of tomatoes. Based on the selected PC, three characteristic wavelengths images at 596, 666, and 858 nm were obtained and the new combination image was calculated. The pseudo‐color image processing and RGB (red, green, and blue) transformation were applied to enhance the contrast between decayed and sound regions on the combined image. G component of RGB image and the corrected single‐wavelength image at 666 nm were used for segmentation of the decayed region and stem‐end on tomatoes, respectively. All samples including 120 decayed and 120 sound tomatoes were used to assess performance of the proposed algorithm. The classification results indicated that 100% of the decayed fruit and 97.5% of sound fruit were accurately identified by proposed algorithm. This study demonstrated that Vis–NIR hyperspectral imaging coupled with image‐spectrum merging processing technology could be a potential approach for detection of tomatoes with early decay. Practical applications: Decay will not only affect the quality of tomato products, but also cause serious food safety problems. Detection of decayed tomatoes has become an universal attentive and urgent solving question for tomato processing industry. Currently, there was no effective and rapid technology to classify between decayed and sound tomatoes. In this study, a novel method was developed and the decayed tomatoes were successful identified using only three characteristic wavelengths images. This study can provide a useful reference for development of fast multispectral imaging system for decayed tomato detection in practical on‐line grading applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polymeric elastomers play an increasingly important role in the development of stretchable electronics. A highly demanded elastic matrix is preferred to own not only excellent mechanical properties, but also additional features like high toughness and fast self‐healing. Here, a polyurethane (DA‐PU) is synthesized with donor and acceptor groups alternately distributed along the main chain to achieve both intra‐chain and inter‐chain donor‐acceptor self‐assembly, which endow the polyurethane with toughness, self‐healing, and, more interestingly, thermal repair, like human muscle. In detail, DA‐PU exhibits an amazing mechanical performance with elongation at break of 1900% and toughness of 175.9 MJ m−3. Moreover, it shows remarkable anti‐fatigue and anti‐stress relaxation properties as manifested by cyclic tensile and stress relaxation tests, respectively. Even in case of large strain deformation or long‐time stretch, it can almost completely restore to original length by thermal repair at 60 °C in 60 s. The self‐healing speed of DA‐PU is gradually enhanced with the increasing temperature, and can be 1.0–6.15 µm min−1 from 60 to 80 °C. At last, a stretchable and self‐healable capacitive sensor is constructed and evaluated to prove that DA‐PU matrix can ensure the stability of electronics even after critical deformation and cut off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walnut is one of the popular nut foods with rich nutritional value and medicinal value. However, it is difficult to detect the internal quality of walnuts because of their solid shell. In this study, a novel method was proposed to nondestructively detect the shriveled kernels in shelled walnuts based on the fusion of image and weight information by machine learning. First, the image and weight information of walnut samples was collected using an industrial charge‐coupled device camera and an electronic balance. Then, three kinds of models including partial least squares‐linear discrimination analysis, a support vector machine (SVM) and a particle swarm optimization algorithm with back propagation (PSO‐BP) were established to discriminate walnuts with shriveled kernels. The classifying effectiveness of all methods was comprehensively compared to determine the optimal one. Finally, the testing results were used to evaluate the three models. Under the same conditions, SVM has the best performance. The classification accuracy and average costing time of SVM were 97% and 0.001 s. Overall research demonstrated that the machine learning method based on weight and image information can be used to quickly, accurately and nondestructively detect the walnuts with shriveled kernels. Practical Applications: Nondestructively detection of walnuts has significant value for walnuts processing in practical application. It can allow the walnut industry to provide better‐tasting walnut to the consumers, and thus, improve industry competitiveness and profitability. A strategy for detecting walnuts with shriveled kernels was proposed based on the fusion of weight and image information using machine‐learning algorithms. The SVM model can quickly and accurately classify walnuts with shriveled kernels using information fusion of imaging and weighing. This work is valuable for online sorting of walnuts with shriveled kernel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the sedimentary basin in the South Yellow Sea that lies between the Chinese mainland and the Korean Peninsula well documents the tectonic evolution of eastern China. However, the Moho morphology and its relationship with the basin in this area remain poorly understood. Here we used high‐resolution 2D seismic lines and well data to map the geometry, structure, and distribution of the sedimentary basin in the South Yellow Sea. Our results suggest that the South Yellow Sea Basin can be divided into two distinct depressions and three uplifts. The depressions consist of eight depositional sags that are largely controlled by ENE‐, EW‐, and WNW‐striking normal faults. The basin depth reaches 9,500 m in the depressions, but is only <2000 m in the uplift zones. Calculated using a gravity stripping method, the Moho depth varies between 27.4 and 31.5 km. The basin is isostatically compensated and the Moho morphology approximately mirrors that of the basin basement. The Moho lows correspond to the uplift zones and Moho highs correspond to the depression zones, with exception of a sag in the Northern Depression. This exception is caused by the presence of a geological body of high velocity and high density beneath the sag. This body is likely to represent high‐pressure metamorphic rock that initially formed during the collision between the Sino‐Korean and Yangtze cratons and are currently overlain by the sedimentary basin. Based on the stretching factors and strain rates of the South Yellow Sea Basin, we propose that development of the basin was primarily driven by the subduction and retreat of the Pacific Plate since the Late Cretaceous, combined by far‐field effects from the convergence between the Indian and Eurasian plates during the Cenozoic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anthocyanins contents from red rice bran were characterized by HPLC/MS. Response surface methodology was used to optimize the ultrasound‐assisted extraction of red rice bran anthocyanin. The antioxidant activities were evaluated in terms of IC50. The tyrosinase inhibitory activities of the anthocyanin samples from red rice bran and the standard substances were determined by a spectrophotometric method. According to mass spectrometry information, the main component of anthocyanins is paeoniflorin (m/z = 480). The optimized anthocyanin level was 5.80 mg/g under the following conditions: solid–liquid ratio of 1:17.46; ethanol concentration of 78.37%; ultrasonication time of 55.23 min; and pH of 2.31. The IC50 value of the DPPH radical scavenging and the superoxide anion scavenging activities of the sample were 53.51 and 2,375 μg/ml; those of the standard were 14.60 and 64.74 μg/ml; and those of vitamin C were 24.45 and 136.25 μg/ml, respectively. The IC50 values of the tyrosinase inhibition activities of the sample and Vc were 4.26 and 2.18 μg/ml, respectively. There is a significant difference (p <.05) between the activities of the three, which may be caused by the purity of the extract. Red rice bran anthocyanins have valuable research and development prospects as skin whiteners and healthcare products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND The shrivelled defect of walnuts has a serious effect on walnut quality and is a common internal defect of in‐shell walnuts. However, only depending on a single detection technique such as machine vision to detect in‐shell shrivelled walnuts is challenging. Meanwhile, the threshold has a great impact on the accuracy of the discrimination analysis. Therefore, the golden‐section was used to search the optimal discrimination threshold and the information integration of force sensing and machine vision was used to identify the shrivelled walnut and the sound walnut. RESULTS: A discrimination model for in‐shell shrivelled walnut based on information integration of force sensing and machine vision was built. The optimal threshold was determined as 0.3464 by the golden‐section method, and the optimal threshold was used to discriminate the in‐shell shrivelled walnut and the sound walnut. The discriminant accuracy of in‐shell shrivelled and sound walnuts were 96.97% and 85.29%, respectively, and the total discriminant accuracy reached 93.00% based on the discrimination model. CONCLUSION: The results indicated the information integration of force sensing and machine vision based on the golden‐section search optimal discrimination threshold is a potential method to discriminate shrivelled walnuts and sound walnuts, which also makes a basis for on‐line detection of in‐shell shrivelled walnut. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Defective TiO2 attracted increasing attention due to its high photocatalytic activities. Herein, we report a facile and efficient method to fabricate gray defective TiO2 by vacuum annealing raw TiO2 materials with copper powders. The treated TiO2 nanoparticles exhibit significantly enhanced visible‐light‐photocatalytic performance with photo‐degradation rate increased to 400% as that of pristine commercial P25 under visible light. The performance enhancements can be attributed to the disordered structure, optimized optical and electronic properties of defective TiO2. In addition, this facile Cu reduction method provides an effective way to generate defective sites in other metal oxides for various potential applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Owing to its narrow indirect bandgap, bulk bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) exhibits exceptionally low room‐temperature photoluminescence (PL). Consequently, it remains challenging to achieve promising optical and optoelectronic performance from Bi2Te3. Moreover, due to the lack of plasmonic materials and available modulation methods, it is challenging to effectively control the surface plasmon resonance intensities in the visible region. Herein, thickness‐dependent photoluminescence studies unveil ultrahigh (282‐fold) room‐temperature photoluminescence (visible) from 20 quintuple layer Bi2Te3 nanosheets (NSs) compared to 200 quintuple layer NSs, attributable to a significant bandgap opening. Intriguingly, considerable photoluminescence quenching is observed beyond the thickness of 20 quintuple layer Bi2Te3. The PL emission is further optimized with reference to the number of quintuple layers, and the mechanism possibly responsible for such PL behavior is elucidated. Moreover, the thickness modulation is put forward as an effective strategy to control visible surface plasmon resonance energy modes and their intensities. Bi2Te3 nanosheets with large area and high crystallinity are fabricated on various silicon substrates by a facile hot‐pressing strategy, which facilitates investigation of intrinsic properties of 2D Bi2Te3. It is believed that these findings hold paramount importance in understanding the optical response of Bi2Te3 toward nanoscale variations and help build next‐generation transparent and flexible optoelectronic/plasmonic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aqueous solution syntheses are mostly based on mixing two solutions with different reactants. It is shown that freezing one solution and melting it in another solution provides a new interesting strategy to mix chemicals and to significantly change the reaction kinetics and thermodynamics. For example, a precursor solution containing a certain concentration of AgNO3 was frozen and dropped into a reductive NaBH4 solution at about 0 °C. The ultra‐slow release of reactants was successfully achieved. An ice‐melting process can be used to synthesize atomically dispersed metals, including cobalt, nickel, copper, rhodium, ruthenium, palladium, silver, osmium, iridium, platinum, and gold, which can be easily extended to other solution syntheses (such as precipitation, hydrolysis, and displacement reactions) and provide a generalized method to redesign the interphase reaction kinetics and ion diffusion in wet chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel polyolefin-based elastomer of polyolefin- graft-poly( t-butylstyrene) is synthesized from styrene moieties via graft-from anionic living polymerization. The afforded elastomer comprises a soft poly(ethylene- t-1-hexene- t-divinylbenzene) segment and a hard poly( t-butylstyrene) [P( t-BS)] segment. The polymerization proceeds via complete lithiation of the pendent styrene groups (polyolefin elastomer) and subsequent graft anionic polymerization of 4- tert-butylstyrene (2000-10 000 g mol−1). The graft-from living anionic polymerization controls the grafting size with excellent efficiency by increasing the monomer concentration. To introduce functional groups into the polymer chain-end, vinyl isoprene units are introduced into the polyolefin- graft-poly( t-butylstyrene) anion to form polyolefin- graft-[poly( t-butylstyrene)- block-polyisoprene] via living block copolymerization. Subsequent graft chain-end multicarboxyl functionalization via thiol-ene 'click' reactions introduces carboxyl groups into the [P( t-BS)] graft chain-end. The water contact angle of this multicarboxyl functionalized product exhibits a sharper decrement, which affects its hydrophilicity significantly. This process produces a novel, well-defined functionalized graft-type polyolefin-based elastomer with a high utility temperature and excellent mechanical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A single fluorescent signal output often does not satisfy the detection accuracy requirements for bioactive compounds in biological systems. It is of great interest to develop a dual-channel turn-on fluorescence sensing system for self-validated detection. Herein, we report a self-quenching nanoparticle composed of dual two-photon dyes of naphthalimides, displaying almost no fluorescence at both channels, owing to aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ). A dual two-photon-channel fluorescent probe for GSH was further developed by inserting a disulfide bond between two naphthalimides. Upon treatment with GSH, the disulfide bond was cleaved, and two napthalimide fluorophores were separated, leading to turn-on fluorescence at both channels. This dual-two-photon-channel design strategy can be easily extended to other analytes, simply by changing the linker molecules, which creates new opportunities to accurately monitor various biological processes in living cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperspectral imaging technology was used to assess the soluble solids content (SSC), titrable acidity content (TAC), and firmness of hami melons. The mean spectra were extracted from the regions of interest (ROI) of the hyperspectral images of each hami melon. Spectral data were first pretreated with different preprocessing methods and analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) method to build calibration models. However, full spectral data contain a great number of redundant and colinear variables that lead to poor predicting ability of calibration models. Three typical variable selection methods, i.e., the genetic algorithm (GA), successive projections algorithm (SPA), and competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) were used to extract effective wavelength variables from the full spectra for determination of SSC, TAC, and firmness of hami melon. The results showed that the SNV-CARS-PLS model based on 51 and 40 wavelength variables achieved the optimal performance for SSC and TAC compared with full spectral SNV-PLS, SNV-GA-PLS, and SNV-SPA-PLS models. The RP, RMSEP, and RPD of SNV-CARS-PLS model for SSC were 0.9606, 0.3816, and 3.598, respectively, and 0.9125, 0.0263, and 2.445 for TAC, respectively. The best model for predicting firmness was RAW-CARS-PLS model based on 57 wavelength variables with the RP RMSEP, and RDP values of 0.8671, 20.05, and 1.996, respectively. Overall, the results indicate that the CARS is a powerful method for selecting effective wavelength variables and demonstrated the feasibility of using hyperspectral imaging technology as a fast and nondestructive method for simultaneous detection of SSC, TAC, and firmness of hami melons. Practical applications The quality of melon has a direct relationship with the soluble solids content, titrable acidity content, and texture of melon. To ensure the best taste and highest nutritional value, it is better for melons to be harvested when completely mature. Nowadays, melons were harvested according to different fruit development times after flowering. Traditional methods for detection of internal qualities and maturity of melon mainly focus on the appearance of melon and depend on the feelings of professionals, which are tedious, time-consuming, expensive, and greatly influenced by subjective factors. More than anything, Traditional methods are hard to be highly accurate. Hyperspectral imaging technology has the advantages of rapid and nondestructive. The results showed that hyperspectral imaging technology for the simultaneous detection of soluble solids content, titrable acidity content, and firmness of melon is feasible. And the results can provide a reference for detecting large fruits by using hyperspectral imaging technology [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fungal pathogen Candida albicans undergoes a transition from yeast cells to filamentous cells that is related to its pathogenicity. The complex multicellular processes involved in biofilm formation by this fungus also include this transition. In this work, we investigated the morphological role of the Bgl2 protein (Bgl2p) in the transition to filamentous cells during biofilm formation by C. albicans. Bgl2p has been identified as a β-1, 3-glucosyltransferase, and transcription of the Ca BGL2 gene is upregulated during biofilm formation. We used scanning electron microscopy to observe the microstructure of a bgl2 null mutant during biofilm formation and found a delay in the transition to filamentous cells in the premature phase (24 hours) of biofilm formation. Deletion of the Ca BGL2 gene led to a decrease in the expression of CPH2 and TEC1, which encode transcription factors required for the transition to the filamentous form. These findings indicate that Bgl2p plays a role in the transition to filamentous cells during biofilm formation by C. albicans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated systems that offer traceable cancer therapy are highly desirable for personalized medicine. Herein, a probe is reported that is composed of a red-emissive photosensitizer (PS) with aggregation-induced emission characteristics and a built-in apoptosis sensor with activatable green emission for targeted cancer cell ablation and real-time monitoring of PS activation and therapeutic response. The probe is nonemissive in aqueous media and can be selectively uptaken by αv β3 integrin overexpressed cancer cells. Cleavage of the probe by intracellular glutathione leads to release of the apoptosis sensor and red fluorescence turn-on to report the PS activation. Upon light irradiation, the PS can generate reactive oxygen species to induce cell apoptosis and activate caspase-3/-7, which will cleave the apoptosis sensor to yield intense green fluorescence. Both the red and green emission can be obtained through a single wavelength excitation, which makes the probe very convenient for therapeutic protocol development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A series of aliphatic diacyl adipic dihydrazides (ADHs) with different alkyl moieties were synthesized by the reaction between adipic dihydrazide and acyl chloride. Then these ADHs were solution blended with PLA respectively and were evaluated as nucleating agents. Through the investigation of nonisothermal and isothermal crystallization, it was found that both the crystallization rate and the crystallinity of PLA could be enhanced by adding only 1 wt % of ADHs. Especially for ADH-Oc (ADH-Octyl), the crystallization rate of PLA increased about 4 times at 105°C. Optical morphology showed that and the size of PLA spherulites decreased and the nucleation density increased with the existence of ADH-Oc. Meanwhile, the crystal structure of PLA were not discerniblly affected after the addition of ADHs as found by wide-angle X-ray diffraction. Thus, this study suggested these ADHs compounds are simple and potential nucleating agents to enhance crystallization ability of PLA. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 42028. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activatable photosensitizers (PSs) have been widely used for the simultaneous fluorescence imaging and photodynamic ablation of cancer cells. However, the ready aggregation of traditional PSs in aqueous media can lead to fluorescence quenching as well as reduced phototoxicity even in the activated form. We have developed a series of PSs that show aggregation-enhanced emission and phototoxicity and thus the exact opposite behavior to that of previously reported PSs. We further developed a dual-targeted enzyme-activatable bioprobe based on the optimized photosensitizer and describe simultaneous light-up fluorescence imaging and activated photodynamic therapy for specific cancer cells. The design of smart probes should thus open new opportunities for targeted and image-guided photodynamic therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this manuscript, a toughened PLA/nanosilica composite with good storage stability was obtained in the presence of the epoxidized soybean oil (ESO). The composite was fabricated via a twin-screw extruder, and characterized by the FTIR, selective distribution test, and SEM. The surface of nanosilica was modified by the ESO through the chemical bonding, and this rendered the nanosilica to selectively localize in ESO droplets in the composite. As a result, the PLA/nanosilica composite was changed from brittleness to ductility with the addition of ESO. For example, the elongation and notched impact strength of the PLA/silica/ESO nanocomposite with 5 wt % nanosilica and 15 wt % ESO were ∼42% and ∼11 KJ/m2, respectively, which were much higher than neat PLA or PLA/nanosilica composite without ESO. Furthermore, the change of the brittle fracture of PLA into ductile fracture was investigated by SEM micrographs in detail. A possible toughening mechanism was also proposed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41220. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperspectral fluorescence imaging (HSFI) is potentially useful for assessing food and agricultural products, because it combines the merits of both hyperspectral imaging and fluorescence spectroscopy. This paper provides an introduction to HSFI: the principle and components of HSFI, calibration and image processing are described. In addition, recent advances in the application of HSFI to food and agricultural product assessment are reviewed, such as contaminant detection, constituent analysis and quality evaluation. Finally, current limitations and likely future development trends are discussed. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polylactide (PLA) is a bio‐based polymeric material which is earth abundant in nature. It also possesses abundant strength and stiffness making it a promising material for industrial applications. However, its brittle behavior is currently limiting research work on them. As such, an eco‐friendly blending approach is developed in this study in order to fabricate a ductile and toughen PLA composites using renewable bio‐based materials as a precursor. Specifically, PLA, epoxidized soybean oil (ESO), and frangible powder form of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are melt blended to prepare the ternary composite system (PLA/CNC/ESO). During the composite routing, it is found out that the ESO successfully attached to the surface of CNC which in turn results in CNC/ESO mixtures in the PLA matrix. This intrinsic combination induces cavitation which consumes the energy produced under the stretching and impacting, resulting in the turning of the PLA's brittle phenomenon. In fact, a reasonable increase in the ductility is observed. The elongation and notched impact strength of the ternary nanocomposite are found to be ∼32% and ∼4.8 kJ m−2, respectively, which are comparatively higher than that of neat PLA or PLA/CNC composites. Differential scanning calorimetry analyses show that the ESO layer on CNC affects the thermal characteristics of PLA in the ternary composite while thermogravimetric analysis shows that there is an increase in the char yield of the composite. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy analysis shows that the synthesis approach adopted here enables a mechanistically turning of the PLA's brittle phenomenon to ductile. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 48221. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In massive multiple‐input–multiple‐output system, the accurate channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) is required to achieve the high beamforming gain and spectral efficiency. To reduce the feedback overhead for CSIT acquisition in frequency division duplex system, a prior CSIT estimation with 1‐bit feedback per dimension is proposed to alleviate the overhead burden. Specifically, by exploiting the slow variation of channel support between the consecutive frames, the channel support in the previous frame is regarded as the prior information for CSIT estimation of current frame. Then, the received compressed channel measurements at the user side are quantized to 1 bit per measurement and only the sign information is fed back to the base station (BS). At the BS side, the CSIT recovery from the 1‐bit channel feedback information is formulated as a 1‐bit sparse complex‐value signal recovery problem with prior information. Finally, a prior support complex binary iterative hard thresholding algorithm is proposed to perform the CSIT estimation at the BS side. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can reduce both the pilot and feedback overhead for CSIT estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processing tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is a very important horticultural product all over the world. Soluble solid content (SSC) as a key quality assessment parameter of processing tomato directly affects quality and cost of processing tomato products such as tomato paste. This study proposes an analytical method for quantitatively assessment of SSC in processing tomatoes by using the visible and near‐infrared (Vis‐NIR) hyperspectral transmittance imaging technique and multi‐parameter compensation models. Monte‐Carlo outlier detection method was applied to optimize sample set. The competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) algorithm was used to identify the optimal wavelengths from transmittance spectra. Two characteristic parameters including area (size) and weight of samples were measured and different models including conventional PLS/LS‐SVM models and multi‐parameter compensation PLS/LS‐SVM models were established, respectively. The results obtained by comparing all the established models showed that the multi‐parameter (spectrum, area, and weight) compensation CARS‐LS‐SVM model with 47 important wavelengths had the best assessment ability of SSC in processing tomatoes. The prediction accuracies of the optimal model are rcal = 0.95 and RMSEC = 0.16 for calibration set, and rpre = 0.94, RMSEP = 0.17 and RPD = 2.94 for prediction set, respectively. Research results indicated that the newly proposed Vis‐NIR hyperspectral transmittance imaging combining with multi‐parameter compensation LS‐SVM model would be potential as a noninvasive technique to quantitatively evaluate the SSC in processing tomatoes. Practical applications: Fast assessment of soluble solid content (SSC) in processing tomatoes has significant value for tomato processing in practical application. High quality processing tomatoes can reduce the processing cost and raise product prices. The newly proposed SSC measurement technique integrated both Vis‐NIR hyperspectral transmittance imaging and multi‐parameter compensation models. This technique can effectively overcome some disadvantageous influences from size and weight of processing tomatoes in the assessment process of SSC. Use of transmittance technology further improved the acquisition capability of effective spectral information from the tested object. This work was valuable for setting up the fast multispectral inspection system that can be used for SSC measurement of processing tomatoes in practical on‐line grading applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perovskite oxide, a low‐cost bifunctional oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst, has acquired a rapidly growing research interest in the areas of energy conversion and storage, owing to its significant surface structure‐induced catalytic performance. Here, recent progress on the electrocatalytic performance of La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3–δ (LSCF) is built by engineering its surface defect structure through a versatile, effective, and controllable lithium reduction strategy. It is established that the lithium reduction treatment causes the formation of a structurally disordered layer at the surface of LSCF nanoparticles. The treated nanoparticles demonstrate significantly enhanced OER and ORR performance, especially for 5 wt% lithium‐reduced LSCF, whose OER potential decreases from 1.66 to 1.55 V at current density of 10 mA cm−2, and ORR onset potential increases from 0.70 to 0.84 V. This work provides the foundation for the optimization of catalytic performance of perovskite oxide (LSCF). Moreover, such defective materials are promising candidates for energy conversion and storage applications. The surface structure of perovskite oxides plays a crucial role on their electrocatalytic performance. Herein, La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3–δ nanopowders with defective surface structure are prepared a controllable, facile, and general lithium reduction method, showing significantly improved electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction and oxygen reduction reaction activity and stability owning to the enhanced oxygen exchange kinetics, electrical conductivity, and structural durability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The multiuser millimeter wave (mmWave) MIMO system has been considered as a promising technology for future 5G cellular networks since high volume of data rates can be achieved by simultaneously supporting multiple users. However, the channel estimation is challenging due to the multiuser interference in frequency‐selective hybrid mmWave MIMO system. In this paper, we focus on the multiuser uplink wideband channel estimation with frequency selectivity. Specifically, a layer‐precoder reuse strategy is proposed, in which each transmission frame is divided into several subframes and the users share a common precoder at each subchannel of different subcarriers. Then, instead of only estimating channel of one user, multiuser frequency‐selective channel can be jointly estimated via a sparse recovery formulation. Furthermore, by exploiting the common sparsity among subchannels in frequency‐selective mmWave system, a distributed compressed sensing (DCS)–based channel estimation is proposed to jointly acquire the channel state information of all users via weighted least square to further reduce the pilot overhead. In addition, the Cramer‐Rao lower bound (CRLB) is derived for multiuser frequency‐selective channel estimation. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed DCS‐based method can asymptotically approach the CRLB of channel estimation. A layer‐precoder reuse strategy is proposed, in which each transmission frame is divided into several subframes and the users share a common precoder at each subchannel of different subcarriers. Multiusers frequency‐selective channel can be jointly estimated via a sparse recovery formulation via the proposed distributed compressed sensing‐based channel‐estimation algorithm by exploiting the common sparsity. The Cramer‐Rao lower bound (CRLB) is derived for multiuser frequency‐selective channel estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On page 6586, B. Z. Tang, B. Liu and co‐workers synthesize a photosensitizer (PS) probe with a built‐in apoptosis sensor for targeted cancer cell ablation and real‐time monitoring of PS activation and therapeutic response. The probe is non‐emissive in aqueous media, and, when selectively taken up by cancer cells, can be cleaved to release the apoptosis sensor, turning on red fluorescence. Upon light irradiation cell apoptosis is induced, and the apoptosis sensor is cleaved to yield intense green fluorescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Heart failure, caused by sustained pressure overload, remains a major public health problem. PKM (pyruvate kinase M) acts as a rate-limiting enzyme of glycolysis. PKM2 (pyruvate kinase M2), an alternative splicing product of PKM, plays complex roles in various biological processes and diseases. However, the role of PKM2 in the development of heart failure remains unknown. Methods and Results Cardiomyocyte-specific Pkm2 knockout mice were generated by crossing the floxed Pkm2 mice with α-MHC (myosin heavy chain)-Cre transgenic mice, and cardiac specific Pkm2 overexpression mice were established by injecting adeno-associated virus serotype 9 system. The results showed that cardiomyocyte-specific Pkm2 deletion resulted in significant deterioration of cardiac functions under pressure overload, whereas Pkm2 overexpression mitigated transverse aortic constriction-induced cardiac hypertrophy and improved heart functions. Mechanistically, we demonstrated that PKM2 acted as a protein kinase rather than a pyruvate kinase, which inhibited the activation of RAC1 (rho family, small GTP binding protein)-MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) signaling pathway by phosphorylating RAC1 in the progress of heart failure. In addition, blockade of RAC1 through NSC23766, a specific RAC1 inhibitor, attenuated pathological cardiac remodeling in Pkm2 deficiency mice subjected to transverse aortic constriction. Conclusions This study revealed that PKM2 attenuated overload-induced pathological cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure, which provides an attractive target for the prevention and treatment of cardiomyopathies.